Moving

I often wonder when I write if anyone gets the hidden underlying messages. Sometimes I know they're obvious like the allusion at the end of Freedom, other times not so much like my recent posts talking on Robert's Rules of Order. Even in my non-blog writing I wonder. Not just my fiction works, but emails at work or to friends, are my hidden meanings too hidden. I have previously said that I often mean 2 things with what I speak, but only when I can't mean three. Another thing I often say is that I entertain the heck out of myself because I know sometimes I am the only one who gets it. A technique, a low-tech technique, I sometimes use is to actually spell it out. I wrote perhaps my only literary poem to my wife describing how much I love her. I used ironic metaphors in the first stanza, then explained the metaphors with a single word in the second which in turn was trying to cement the complete circuitous manner that I have of loving her. My Jonah allegory is novella length, and as I wrote I kept track of the major points hidden in it. The main themes were explained in the work, but the little things like naming a hotel after the preacher that baptized me, and several references to my current preacher that was the reason I was so consumed by Jonah in the first place. It also tracks a few of the pop culture references I included, things that did not need to be explicitly mentioned in the work. In my current work in progress there are many more deeply seated (or it could be deeply seeded) ideas underlying the work. So deep that if I don't spell them out they could be missed, yet they are the very point of the work.

A few days ago I "opened" my self-hosted WordPress Blog on this site. It corresponds with a giant personal move as well. One I am not really looking forward to that will involve uprooting my family from the place we've called home for the longest time we've ever had a place we can call home. We're headed to the place I used to call home (or thereabouts). Incredibly to me, I read just this morning another blog on the subject of going home that screams of deeply hidden points to me. One of the most unobvious is the fact that the picture on the header of the blog is a perpendicular shot near the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life.

I have moved, I will be moving, I have been moved. Have you?

Tell me in the comments of a time you have moved, where you are moving, or what has moved you. 

• Home Again, Home Again, Gin, Gin, Gin (Miss Edee)

Interpretative Labeling

Southerners are their own group when it comes to talking. No one can talk quite like a Southerner, especially a Northern actor playing a Southerner, and that's not even beginning to touch any actor not from New Orleans playing someone from Nawlins. In addition to just our drawl and accents, we have two more bad linguistic points.

One, we believe it to be our right to mispronounce ANYTHING, except you'd better not mispronounce our names/labels. In my home town of Biloxi (it's Bill-uh-xe, not Bill-ox-e) we had Reynoir (pardon my french pronuciation attempt, rin-waa) which we pronounce rain-are, Caillavett (kaileevette) or Ki-vet, and used to have both Beauvoir (Bo-vo-ah) and Buena Vista (bu-ee-na vees-ta) meaning beautiful view that are massacred into Bovore and Beuna Vista. The picture here is looking down what is now known as the Vieux Marche (pronounced view mar-shay, though not in its native french), and another oddity is Point Cadet (pronounced Point Caddy). I can speak these much better then I can ever type them.

The second is our phrases, such as naked (pronounced nekkid) as a jaybird (nude), flat-out (meaning as fast as you can), 'bout as much chance as a kerosene cat in hell with gasoline drawers on (not going to happen), and others. In fact, I was 14 before I found out that damn Yankee was two words.

Our churches are no different. During the War Between the States the Baptists and Methodists split. Afterwards the Methodists rejoined, giving us the United Methodists, but we Baptists, ever the free-spirited, remain split. Interestingly though, both Baptists and Southern Baptists tend to agree on a few linguistic choices. Once we outgrow our sanctuary and build a newer bigger building we call the old sanctuary the "Fellowship Hall." Oftentimes it is surrounded or borders our Family Life Building (Recreation Hall), which in turn contains our MPR or Multi-Purpose Room (gym). We have an altar (stairs to the stage) at the front of the sanctuary, and we share (gossip) in Sunday School. Well, not share as much as we ask prayer for others because they are...(list gossip-worthy transgressions here). While we don't subscribe to concept of transmogrification, we do believe in partial transmogrification because we use grape juice (wine) when we have the Lord's Supper (Communion). I'm not entirely serious when I say that the Baptist word for sprinkler is Methodist, but a more serious definition is that we call dance interpretative movement.

That is a little simplistic of course, because as Baptist we feel dance is wrong, but interpretive movement is fine. Problem is, it's the same thing. And while anyone who is not a believer may look at this point (or this whole post) and say that it is a perfect example of the non-logic and therefore proof (though the two are not the same thing) of the errors in organized religions, I present that this is merely one of those "small points" rather than a larger truth that churches can argue over. Certain concepts are not to be argued over, but the finer distinctions between denominations (like dance) are open game.

Jesus never said not to dance, but our modern-day legalism believes dancing can lead to sinning with the whole 'vertical expression of a horizontal desire' reasoning. It's a gateway activity. While I don't kid myself into thinking that the Baptist church will one day accept with open arms dance, calling it anything other than interpretive movement, or even remove it from the list of don'ts, it does seem to gain traction as an activity each year. It remains one of those areas open for argument, or discussion if you prefer. Not quite on the level with the full immersion versus sprinkling concept, but open nonetheless. 

The Bright Side of Destruction

The storms of last week still seem to dominate the attention of all in my neck of the woods. While I did not plan on having multiple posts linking the tornadoes of 27 Apr to Hurricane Katrina, I appear to be doing it once more. Yesterday I read a blurb that said Alabama had done in a week for tornado victims what it took six months to do after Katrina. This morning I read several articles and blogs that highlighted small wonders of the storm and aftermath. Small wonders are nice, but this is only the beginning of them. The tip of the iceberg if you're into clichés. Because it is still too early to see the bigger picture from this storm, I will share an example from my family and Katrina.

Prior to the hurricane, my cousin had a job in a casino restaurant. He had maxed out his pay scale and after a bad night when he had been given more responsibilities, the supervisor said he would never get another shot. So, basically he was as high as he could ever get, making as much as he could ever make. Not a bad thing, but no possibility for upward movement. His casino was devastated by the storm. When things got back to operating (not to normal mind you) he got a job at a land based restaurant, making more than he had been previously. He didn't like the place that much and took a job at Lowe's, making more money, where they were taking everything from the left side of the store and putting it on the right, and vice versa. After several nights of nothing to do and his boss telling him to just hide until his shift was over, he left that job. The next week he interviewed for a job with the first casino to reopen, and got another job, just like he had before, except this one: 1) paid more than Lowe's, 2)had upward mobility, which he was able to take, and 3) ended up being much closer to where he lived, which was very handy when gas prices spiked a few years later. He wasn't looking for better, but it found him.

Even the town I grew up in is better than it was pre-storm. One of my last employers was a municipality in Alabama that was founded by carpetbaggers in the early 1880s. It was 125 years old, and the state of its infrastructure was bad. Crumbling in spots. Biloxi was founded in 1699, way over twice as old (plus no carpetbaggers) and yet its infrastructure is much better shape. You get that when you have to rebuild the town every four to five decades, but that's not the point. Everything is better after the storm. You can't and don't see it while you're in it, but it is. It will be.

His is one of many stories I know. They contrast with what was lost, but taken as a whole, I do not know any person that went through Katrina that is not now in a much better place for it. Share your stories, you won't have to think hard. There is a bright side to destruction, it is Romans 8:28.

Related Articles

• After Alabama Tornadoes (John Archibald, Birmingham News)